Mating disruption (MD) using synthetic sex pheromone lures has been used to control the Oriental fruit moth, Grapholita molesta (Busck), in apple orchards. In Korea, where several small apple orchards are clustered but independently managed, its efficacy has been suspected mainly due to immigration of any mated females from nearby untreated cultivating areas. This study developed an edge treatment technique to decrease any local MD-free zones in a specific MD-treated farm and to trap any immigrating mated females by installing MD lures and food traps around the apple farm with 10 meter intervals. The addition of the edge treatment to the MD significantly prevented leaf and fruit damages induced by G. molesta compared to MD only. Moreover, this study tried to optimize the MD control technique by determining frequency of MD application. It suggests two MD applications with the edge treatment at the end of March and at the early of July to be effective throughout the entire apple growing seasons.

This study was performed to estimate the efficacy of three commercial mating disruptors for the control of oriental fruit moth, Grapholita molesta (Busck), using a food-baited trap to collect field females. Mated female ratios estimated in the mating disruptor-treated areas were compared with the estimates of male trap captures, and both estimates were evaluated on the basis of crop damage measured by shoot tip damage caused by G. molesta. Both males and females were attracted to the food trap-baited with terpinyl acetate in apple orchard. Spermatophore of G. molesta was similar to female bursa copulatrix in size. Though there was more than 95% reduction in male trap captures indicating significant mating disruption, significant crop damage occurred on apple leaf buds, in which more than 35% of captured females were mated. This study demonstrates that assessment of the mated females would be more reasonable to represent the efficacy of mating disruptor(s) than the assessment of the male captures in G. molesta.